A bit of break from Hiyazaki’s usual fantastical fare of fun family movies is Princess Mononoke. This movie is set in a time of mystery and feudal states, when gunpowder is becoming more common of a weapon in Nippon, and the Emperor is looking to find immortality in all the wrong places. Ashitaka (Billy Crudup) is a prince of a tribe that was thought to be wiped out. When a possessed boar attacks his homeland, he takes up defenses, and the hateful demon infects his arm. He is banished to prevent any more damage from coming to his people. In his travels, he runs into Jigo (Billy Bob Thornton), a monk on a mission for the Emperor. Jigo is to bring back the head of the Great Forest Spirit, a creature that looks like an elk with a human face during the day, but at night become a celestial being that protects the forests.
As Ashitaka goes along on his travels, he helps out a group of villager being attacks by some samurai, and he finds that his shooting arm, the part of him that is infected with demon energy, has taken on a whole new kind of strength as his arrows brutally slash threw the warriors in rather graphic ways. No, this is not a conventional animated movie, nor is it a conventional Hiyazaki movie, thus the PG-13 rating. Read more...(692 words, 80 images, estimated 2:46 mins reading time)